A big evolutionary step for a mystifyingly arcane device

Why the TI-80 series graphing calculators took 22 years to go color.

The TI-84+C Silver can now perform mathematical operations based on images.

Texas Instruments

It was big news when Texas Instruments revealed it would finally upgrade one of its best-loved graphing calculators with a color screen next year, in large part because graphing calculators are near-stagnant pieces of technology, changing in only the tiniest increments since their introduction two decades ago. Why did TI wait so long? And after waiting so long, why now?

Graphing calculators have always been very simple machines, often featuring old Zilog Z80 or Motorola 68000 processors, a handful of kilobytes of user-accessible RAM, a 96x64 display, and a compartment for a few AAA batteries. But despite such ancient hardware profiles, math and science students and teachers have come to depend on them; a math student’s best friend in the world is, arguably, his calculator.

In 1990, Texas Instruments created its first graphing calculator, dubbed the TI-81, for use by students in high school math classes. The TI-82 followed, then the TI-83, then the TI-84... today, the TI-89 Titanium is the series flagship, sporting "apps" and a USB connector. In a few months, the TI-80 line will go color with the TI-84+C Silver, which follows in the footsteps of TI's separate TI-Nspire line with color displays from last year. The TI-84+C Silver's new hardware profile includes a 320x240 16-bit color display, 3.5MB of flash ROM, and 21KB of RAM—hardly cutting edge by smartphone standards, but high-end for a traditional graphing calculator. Yet the TI-80 line endures. How?

For one thing, the constraints of the graphing calculator are key selling points. They provide something of a known quantity when it comes to doing math, especially on standardized tests, where a fully programmable smartphone with Web access would not be allowed. (TI prominently displays a "Permitted on testing" logo alongside its calculators; many of its devices are explicitly green-lighted for use with the AP and SAT standardized tests.) The need for limits makes it difficult for TI to evolve its devices even a little without upsetting the balance. As Alexis Madrigal pointed out at The Atlantic last year, it’s not as if calculators need to keep pace with changing subject matter, either. “If the calculators were good enough for us 10 or 15 years ago, they are still good enough to solve the math problems,” he noted.

Still, the idea of paying $50 to $150 (or more) for a single-purpose device that your smartphone can run laps around makes us cringe. TVs went color 60 years ago; we carry around color screens in our pockets now. We couldn’t get that trivial feature in a simple 96x64 calculator screen until now?

Technology for technology's sake

Tysun McKay, director of communications and Web strategy at TI, told me that one of the reasons color calculators weren’t a priority for the company was that educators simply weren’t asking for them until recently.

“We don’t want to create technology for technology’s sake,” McKay said. She noted that one of TI’s priorities is maintaining the price of the calculator. A few years ago, teachers told the company that a color screen would be nice, but wouldn't be worth a higher purchase price, McKay said.

One of the advantages of a color screen: easier to read plots of equations.

But the increasing ubiquity of smartphones finally played a role in pushing TI to give the TI-80 line a color screen. “If you look at the transition of your screens that used to be on a smartphone seven years ago versus the screens you see today, seeing what they can do helps [educators] explore those capabilities,” she said. I asked McKay directly if TI saw the growth of smartphones as a common personal device as a threat to the graphing calculator’s niche. She said the company is not worried.

“We haven’t seen as much change in quite some time but it’s more exciting than it is a problem to see change," McKay said. "It’s letting us really think differently about 'how do we make sure students are excelling at math and science?'”

Battery life was also a concern with the new display, which takes more power. “It’s no big deal if my phone dies and I miss a phone call," said McKay. "It’s a pretty big deal if your calculator dies and you can’t answer some questions on a quiz.”

Last year, an article in the Washington Post pointed out that some classrooms were integrating tablets and smartphones into math classes rather than making students purchase dedicated calculators for around $100. One teacher even noted that students were learning math more quickly using their phones. Teachers may lose some consistency as students use different smartphone apps, but as long as each student has mastery of their app’s particular method to, say, plot an equation, the classroom experience can still hold up.

Lucas Allen, who writes the graphing calculator blog TechPoweredMath and uncovered the news of the TI-84+C Silver on the Cemetech forums, had a few more guesses about the new color calculator and why it might have taken so long to develop. “I don’t doubt that any of this could have been done a while ago,” Allen told Ars. “I really don’t think TI anticipated the excitement that a color TI-84 could produce.”

“Things move very slowly in the world of education,” he added, noting that sometimes department chairs in high schools or colleges need to retire before change can be effected. “Most of the leaders in the math education community have moved on from the TI-84,” Allen said, to the (literally) greener pastures of the TI-Nspire line. But there’s “still a very loyal camp” of TI-84 users, whether they’re academics or hackers homebrewing their own versions of Portal. For them, the TI-84’s incremental upgrade may be perfect—a way for things to change while, as much as possible, staying almost exactly the same.

Really? No other innovation was possible without keeping the price at its absurd $100 price point? What about better resolution? Lighter weight? More thin frame? Better build quality? The nexus 7 is $200 for god sakes...

All it comes down to is that TI is greedy and want as high of a profit margin as it can without any revolts and the educational system unfortunately just played to their hands.

I don't buy the argument that there's a lack of demand for new innovations in graphic calculators.

But that's nothing compared to the argument TI makes that they've intentionally withheld new features in order to "maintain the existing price point". There is no reason whatsoever why the current TI-84/89 cost nearly as much as they do.

I would love to see what TI's actual cost of materials & manufacturing is.

I swear the only thing keeping these things alive is the SAT's ridiculous requirements.

I would love to see the actual profit margins on these things. I have to imagine they made back their R&D costs years ago since they actually haven't innovated since I was in high school over ten years ago.

To be fair, there's not a whole lot that can be done to graphing calcs without breaking education. Programs are bad enough (I had one that simulated a blank calculator, but let me call programs instead of remembering shit*). If the core functions of the calculator start doing the shit students are supposed to be learning...

I still have a TI-84, and I think and 83 somewhere. They're really damned good calculators; it's taken a truely colossal amount of abuse over the years and, given a handful of batteries, powers up fine. Not that I really have a lot of use for just a calc anymore; I just call up the calculator programs on my phone or computer, or if it's more demanding fire up Excel.

I do have an uncle that still uses one. Of course, he also still uses a slide rule (which is actually a pretty cool, useful skill; slide rules don't care about the weather, don't have software bugs, don't need batteries or sunlight, and a practiced hand with a slipstick is about as fast as a good calculator user).

* Not that I think the emphasis on rote memorization is necessarily useful, especially when it's crap like specific theorems instead of basic functions.

Aren't some calculators used by people when they're doing the jobs at which they're working for a living, instead of students taking tests? Those, one would think, could be improved as much as any other computer device.

Aren't some calculators used by people when they're doing the jobs at which they're working for a living, instead of students taking tests? Those, one would think, could be improved as much as any other computer device.

You can't guess how many times I threw mine across the room doing Differential Equations homework. It *somehow* still works.

When I worked retail, I was supposed to push extended warranties on graphing calculators. Customers frequently asked if they were necessary. My boss had a sob story about how his son's broke the first time he dropped it. I felt guilty for not telling them that mine survived hundreds of drops.

It is pretty ridiculous the prices for these things hasn't come down in the last two decades. I am curious why TI hasn't had some competition that could have undercut them by a huge margin in that time. I know Casio has them but they never seemed as popular as the TI's

I still have my TI-85 in a box somewhere. I'm just shocked that these still cost $100 when you look at their internals... How can a Raspberry Pi be 1/4 the cost and 600 times the processing power? A display, plastic case, magnetic keypad and sensors can't equal $75 dollars. In addition what RND has gone into a new model of the last 8 years since the TI-84 was released in 2004?

At the time they were awesome calculators and did their job well, I just can't see how they could cost so much especially when TI makes them at volume.

But at least with a color display you can finally write games in assembly that display in color...

I think the better question isn't "why hasn't anything been added to TI calculators in 20 years?" but rather "why do the damn things still cost $100?" My TI-83+ from 13 years ago still does all the math a high school student needs, so it's not like something needed to be added, but the price is the same as it was back then. Really?

It seems like everyone's forgot about the nspire line, which seems perfectly find to me. It has higher resolution, more features, better interface, etc. Why can't people just use those?

For the things the TI-83/84 does, the 83's keyboard layout and UI is better than the nspire-- more stuff exposed at the top level of the keyboard; less space dedicated to "yay we can make a calculator that's half a PDA too!"

There's also a lot of written material (particularly textbooks) already out there for the 83 series, plus teachers already know how to use the things because they've been using similar calculators in classes since the 82 (while a graphing calculator isn't a substitute for teaching or critical thought, they are incredibly useful as an exploratory tool, and in-class use makes up a good chunk of that).

It's that last bit that keeps these calculators so expensive-- TI's had an effective monopoly on the education market for the last couple decades or so because of the material that's built up around their system. Casio, et al. can't make any real inroads in that market because they put students "behind" the rest of the class who are using the standard.

It seems like everyone's forgot about the nspire line, which seems perfectly find to me. It has higher resolution, more features, better interface, etc. Why can't people just use those?

When I was in school using these *ahem a decade or two ago* the curriculum was based on using a specific calculator to make the teacher's job easier when they would instruct the class on how to use them. A specific TI model was actually listed as a requirement for the class, with a stipulation that should you purchase a different device (or even different TI model), that you were on your own and no help would be given. I remember this quite clearly as TI-83's were the standard at the time and I was told that since I had a TI-85 that I was on my own.

Worked out well in the end, was writing programs to solve equations for tests anyway.

I tutor school and first year university level physics and chemistry and I have had one of these calculators for years. It cost a small fortune, £100 back when that was real money.Problem is, I don't use it. The interface is not intuitive and most of the advanced functions are not easy to use, particularly for the kids I teach. I now use a much cheaper Casio, which is downright superior. The surd form answers (fractions, roots etc) and fractional inputs are better from both a teaching and a simplicity point of view.Whenever a pupil asks me about graphical calculators, I tell them not to bother. Sorry, TI...

These devices have barely moved in prices in 20 years and he has the gall to say things like color screens causing not justifying a higher price point?

And it's a pretty big deal if your calculator runs out of batteries and you can't take a few questions on a quiz? Come on! And it's not like every math and science teacher doesn't keep spare AA batteries in their classrooms for reasons just like this.

What you mean to say Mr. McKay, is that TI was drawing out it's education market monopoly as long as it could.

What a racket they have, ripping parents and students off, making them buy a device made with 1990's technology that shouldn't cost more than $5 for $120.

It's a shameless ripoff.

90s technology? A TI-83 is late 70s technology (albeit somewhat more compact). Flash on the 83+ brings it up to the 80s, and USB on the 84 brings it to the late 90s/early 2000s, but that's all dressing on top of what is essentially the same calculator as the 83.

Personally, a color screen on a calculator is overkill for me ( my prefrence) I carry around 2 calculators the TI-84 and the TI-nspire CAS click pad ( the touchpad layout is terrible). My math teacher ( I'm doing duel credit Calculus) actually discourages graphing calculator. You can complete her classes with a one line scientific calculator. ( and they tough no watering down, you just have to do the work yourself) I end up not ever using the CAS or graphing functions because its faster to do without than typing it into the calculator. Don't get me wrong I love my fancy calculator but not relying on it is a great feeling.

The other thing about color screens is they drain batteries like no other. With my grayscaled screen calculators I can put in batteries once a year and end with 50% charge the end.

It seems like everyone's forgot about the nspire line, which seems perfectly find to me. It has higher resolution, more features, better interface, etc. Why can't people just use those?

When I was in school using these *ahem a decade or two ago* the curriculum was based on using a specific calculator to make the teacher's job easier when they would instruct the class on how to use them. A specific TI model was actually listed as a requirement for the class, with a stipulation that should you purchase a different device (or even different TI model), that you were on your own and no help would be given. I remember this quite clearly as TI-83's were the standard at the time and I was told that since I had a TI-85 that I was on my own.

Worked out well in the end, was writing programs to solve equations for tests anyway.

the 85 was awesome for H.S. math classes. If you actually read the manual you didn't actually need to do a single test problem! No wonder I'm so bad at math now.

I remember having an old color casio graphing calculator back in high school. everyone else had a TI so I had to figure out everything on my own. I was happy I had a color screen and no one else did. Special snowflake, right?

When I got to college, I had a TI-92 that I programmed to do all my math problems for me. It was awesome to make slope fields for my diff-eq class. My prof wanted to call it cheating, and then relented because I had to know what I was doing in the first place to write the program at all. I was quite sad and nostalgic when they discontinued those.

When I started teaching (high school mathematics), I tried to use the Voyage for stuff, but it became too cumbersome, and so I moved everyone to the computer lab. Once everyone got tired of drawing clowns in Geometer's Sketchpad, I got some fun stuff done.

Aren't some calculators used by people when they're doing the jobs at which they're working for a living, instead of students taking tests? Those, one would think, could be improved as much as any other computer device.